Hard as Rock and Soft as Silk
by Cleopatra Antoinette
Summary: She had steel under her soft exterior, and he was gentle beneath his hard shell. They were slow to change and quick to anger, but neither of them were every quite willing enough to give up on each other. Not when 'together' was so much better than 'alone'.


So yesterday, I wrote a 7 page SonAmy fic with the same iPod shuffle theme. I love iPod shuffles. They're so much fun. But after I wrote something for Sonic and Amy, I started thinking about my other favorite Sonic couple, Knuckles and Rouge. I was going to do it later, but I decided "Oh, what the hell, I'm on a Hedgehog kick now, so I might as well ride it while it lasts." Hence this story.

As a warning, Rouge and Knuckles may be somewhat OOC since I haven't watched anything Sonic related in a while, just read some comics (which I don't like nearly as much as the games, to be honest), but I do think I remained true to their overall spirit. Next time I do this, I'll watch some Sonic X cartoons or something to get real a hang on them.

But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this story enough to give it a review or two at the end. I look forward to seeing ya'll's reactions.

This story is rated for implied and non-explicit sex. Because, let's face it, while Amy and Sonic are sweet and romantic, Knuckles and Rouge have SO MUCH CHEMISTRY, it's ridiculous.

Everything belongs to Sega. Except the songs. And the actual writing. The writing is mine. So don't steal it.

* * *

**Hard as Rock and Soft as Silk**

**Thinking of You - Katy Perry**

Her body was pressed against a random stranger's, his fingers stroking through her hair, over her wings, her hips, her-

She shoved him away gently, a sexy grin playing at her lips. "Not yet, handsome."

Her current partner, a black bat, grinned back at her. "Whatever gets you going, gorgeous," he purred, and then his arms were wrapped around her, his mouth covering hers. And that was when it all went wrong.

It felt… weird. Not right. Like something was missing. Like there was something off about the entire situation, and she couldn't seem to shake it. Frowning to herself as her partner nibbled and sucked at her neck, she decided to let it go until a more appropriate moment. Or at least one more conducive to rational thought.

It wasn't until later that night, when she was laying underneath her lover on a hotel bed, their groans and pants in sync, that she realized what was wrong with the scene. His fur wasn't red.

She didn't know his name, and she didn't care to, but his body was so different than what she was imagining all of a sudden, and a terrible sadness came over her as she recognized what it was that she really wanted. Later that night, when he was laying on top of her as he slept, she kept her eyes squeezed shut, imagining that the body she held belonged to someone else with startling violet eyes.

Rouge didn't know that miles and miles away, someone's fist was clenching and unclenching as those eyes she was dreaming about stared into the depths of a gigantic emerald, the images swirling inside known only to him. But when his fist came crashing down onto a boulder, shattering it, it was clear that whatever he saw, he didn't like it.

**Romeo and Juliet – The Killers**

Rouge was beautiful. She was fearsome. She was graceful. She was seductive. She was clever. She was cunning. She was strong. She was capable. She was what every girl wanted to be.

She was also one seriously screwed up individual with trust issues, commitment issues, an inability to keep healthy relationships, and a healthy dose of paranoia. She was like a marble statue with innumerable tiny cracks running through it. The bat thief never let anyone see these cracks though, and most people never noticed them.

But he did. That damned echidna saw right through her, every single time. And he knew she was pretending, too. The jewel thief wasn't about to let him get anywhere near her, though. Not with a fifty foot pole. At least not in that way. No one came close enough to her heart to mess with it, and she knew that if she let him, he'd slip right inside and try to fix her. But she didn't want to be fixed. She didn't trust him to do the job. She didn't trust him far enough to throw him, period. She didn't really trust anyone, except to trust that they'd backstab her eventually, or judge her, or tell her that she needed to change because she wasn't good enough. It always ended that way. He'd be no different. No, it was better to imagine what it'd be like together than to actually risk it, and everything that might go with it. When Knuckles tried to approach her about her feelings, about her past and her hurt, she shoved him away.

"I could help you," he protested.

"Help me what?" she asked bitterly. "Help me realize that I'm just a thief and good for nothing else, and least of all trustworthy?"

His eyes reflected the hurt that her words caused him. "That was before, Rouge. I didn't know you then."

She waved him off. "Go analyze someone else, Boy Scout," she sneered. "I'm not in the mood to bare my heart and soul to you. You couldn't handle it."

"You just wanna throw a giant pity-party," Knuckles told her. "I'm not having that. You wanna wallow in self-pity, you go right ahead and do it. I'm not interested. When you actually feel like letting someone help you, call me. I'll be there."

He had to fight the urge to beg her to let him in because he could see how close she was to breaking. She had to fight the urge to ask him to glue her back together.

**I Miss You - Blink-182**

"It's been a long time, hasn't it, handsome?"

"Really, Rouge? I haven't seen you in a year, and when I do it's when I'm catching you trying to steal my emerald, and all you can say is 'It's been a long time?'"

"A whole year? Wow, I didn't think it had been that long."

"Rouge, I have you hanging upside down from the ceiling. I hardly think this is the right time for you to be making light conversation."

"My, but you have grown more talkative. And even more muscular. Besides, I'm a bat. I sleep hanging upside down naturally."

"… Really?"

"Wanna find out? We can go to bed together if you like. Oh, I mean fall asleep together."

And there it was. The blush. Knuckles stammered something out as Rouge quickly detangled herself from the crude trap, and landed next to Knuckles, pressing herself against him and purring into his ear. "I missed you, handsome." Then she knocked him out.

When he woke up, she was gone, and the echidna was left alone with the Master Emerald that she had left for some reason. He stared at the green stone for a minute before sighing sadly. "Missed you, too."

**The Bandstand - A-ha**

Knuckles carried her away from the fight as quickly as he could. She was badly injured, or at least it looked like it at that moment. She was barely moving, and her fur was dyed a red that almost matched his with all the blood from her injuries. He hated it. Tightening his grip around her, he ran faster, then faster. As fast and as far as he could from the battle. He was heading to the nearest safe place he could think of- home.

A few hours later, Rouge woke up to find herself bandaged and laying in a strange bed. Knuckles sat next to her, exhaustion written clearly on his face. "For claiming to be so smart, you can be real dumb," he told her. But his words lacked their usual vigor. "Why'd you go and do that, Rouge?" he asked her. "We could have handled it. We were okay. You were just passing through. Look what's happened to you."

"Eh, Eggy came off with worse." She was surprised with how raw her throat felt.

"That's not the point!" Knuckles moved so that he was straddling her. She knew it wasn't intended to be sexual, just so his face could be directly in front of hers. That was his nature- confrontational. "You almost got killed!"

"But I wasn't," Rouge argued.

He leaned closer to her face, his anger controlled but obvious. "Why would you do something so stupid?"

Rouge's answer made him freeze. "Because I knew you'd save me if anything bad happened," she said quietly.

What was he supposed to say to that? He couldn't disagree, because it was absolutely true. If they were in a war zone, a battlefield, about to be bombed to pieces, he would still go after her, each and every time.

He gave a deep sigh and slid off her to lay next to her on his back. "You're going to be the death of me, woman," he told her dully.

"Seems fair, since I just almost got killed for you." She didn't feel like adding that she'd die before he did if she had anything to say about it.

**One Day - LMFAO**

The guys were all partying it up that night, all six- no, eight of them! The three hedgehogs, blue, black, and silver (although the last two had to be sort of shoved into the celebrations), the fox, the bee, the lizard, the gator. Or was he a crocodile? Who the hell knew. Oh, and him. For some reason, it was hard to remember names. Not that it mattered, he just called them all by their colors. Except for the Bee. He was called Stripy. The bee and the fox were sitting on a sofa drinking soda and eating candy while the rest of them drank up whatever was shoved at them. How much had he already had? Felt like gallons of stuff. Ah, victory was a glorious, wonderful, amazing thing. Especially when they knew Eggman was sitting somewhere wailing his eyes out.

"I tell ya, I'm tellin' ya, Knux," giggled Sonic drunkenly (if anyone ever told him he had giggled, they'd be Sonic Dashed right there), "I'm just sayin' we got eeeverything. All the stuff everyone else wants, we got it!"

"What about girls?" cackled Vector from the other side of the room.

Sonic's face turned red. "SHADDUP!" he shouted at him.

"I don't see no girls but that cute little rose you got followin' you around! Why don't you take her out?! You like guys or somethin'? Maybe I'll set her up with Espio here." And then Sonic was pummeling the gator/croc while the pummel-ee was snapping at him with those monster jaws.

Girls… Knuckles stared down at his half-empty glass. For some reason, now Sonic's earlier proclamation of them having everything seemed to ring hollow, while Vector's words just constantly rang in his ears. "No girls…" he murmured, swirling the half-melted ice around in his cup. When he swirled them really fast, they looked kind of like a white mass. Like a face. With a cute smile and bedroom eyes that made him think things that probably were best not dwelled upon. "No girls," he said again.

He looked up from his glass and out the window at the full moon hanging in the sky like a giant diamond. Perhaps she was looking and thinking the same thing.

"No girls." He lifted his glass up to the moon in a salute. "Not now, maybe. But soon. One of these days."

"One of these days what?" asked Silver, his face flushed and a silly smile on his lips.

"One of these days," was all Knuckles said, and he looked so serious that whatever he was talking about, Silver was sure he'd do it eventually.

**I'm Still Breathing - Katy Perry**

My, my, how far she had fallen. Here she was, Rouge the Bat, Jewel Thief extraordinaire, the scourge of security systems everywhere, the object of countless women's jealousies and innumerable men's lust and fantasies... and she was crying over one man. Weeping over him. Giant sobs wracking her entire frame, making her shake. What was wrong with her? She should be out on the town, snatching up gorgeous gems of all shapes and sizes, confounding the city's finest and capturing the imaginations of all who heard of her escapades.

But no. Instead, she was sitting in her penthouse apartment, chugging bourbon and replaying what had happened that morning over and over and over.

"_What the hell is wrong with you?!"_ Oh, the look on his face. _"I trusted you, and you go and pull something like this!"_ Disgust, anger, fury…

"_How could you do this to me?! TO __**ME**__!"_ The hurt. The hurt that was written all over him, the agony reflecting in his eyes. That was what was killing her.

He shouldn't have trusted her, she said to herself stubbornly. He knew what she was. What she had done. How could he expect her to change like that overnight? A couple of kisses, an unofficial date or two, and now suddenly she was bound to him and all his expectations? No, she didn't work like that. That's now how she did things. She didn't commit like that.

But he did. He committed like that. He committed to _her_.

"GOD DAMNIT!" she screamed, and threw the bottle in her hand against the wall, watching with satisfaction as it smashed to bits upon impact and the liquid inside rained down splashing across the walls, covering the pearly white of the paint with its own dark stain.

She felt like the bottle. Broken. And Rouge had done it all to herself. She had always said that no one would break her, just her. Her own doing. She had meant that if anyone killed her, it would be her. No machine. No gun. No poison. No weapon. Most importantly, no man. And damned if she hadn't stuck to her word. She broke her own damn self, her own damn heart, and took his down with her. Rouge would have been proud of herself if she hadn't been so damned unhappy.

**Neon Tiger - The Killers**

"Why don't we blackmail that guardian guy to help us out?" one of her companions suggested. Rouge's eyes narrowed as she stared at him. He continued on. "Yeah, threaten to smash that ol' rock of his if he doesn't come along with us?"

"No," said Rouge.

The rest of them turned to stare at her "No what?"

"Leave him out of this."

"What the hell for? He can do what we need and all it takes is a bomb attached to that emerald he likes so much."

"Leave. Him. Alone."

Her dog companion curled his lip at her. "What, you gonna stop us?"

"Yes."

They ignored her and went back to planning. She left them and flew to the island, knowing they'd show up there sooner or later, but being careful not to show herself.

When they appeared, she pounded them into the ground, smashed their faces against trees and rocks, hauling them across the grass back to their plane. "I said, leave him alone," she told them. "And I meant, leave him alone. Don't come back here again." Then they were gone, limping off to lick their wounds. Rouge was about to leave as well, not wanting to stay longer than she had to. But then-

"Rouge? What are you doing here?" Cringing, she turned her head slightly to see Knuckles staring at her with a confused look. "Who were they?"

"No one," she said. "They won't be back." A brief silence. Memories of their last meeting. She was in no mood to talk to him about it, or anything. She didn't even like looking at him. "I have to go."

"Wait!" For anyone else, she would have flown off. Instead, she stood there, slightly hunched over, waiting for him to make some sort of derogatory comment towards her. "Do, uh, would you… like to stay? For dinner, I mean." He watched as her white head slowly swung in his direction. She looked unsure, unsettled, worried, afraid, but deep in her eyes shone something that he had rarely seen in her, and something he wanted desperately to keep seeing. Hope. "I made enough for two," he continued. "I usually make extra for leftovers, but, uh, you look… hungry."

A tiny smile made its way onto her face. Some of the worry was replaced with relief. "I think I'd like that," she said.

**Arms - Christina Perri**

He knew that she was scared out of her mind. Not because he was hurting her, or because he was mean, or anything like that. But because she was starting to let him through that ten foot brick wall she had built around herself, carefully camouflaged with flower bushes so no one saw how defensive she was. Knuckles kept some distance this time, letting her know that if she wanted him to, he'd come closer, and waiting for an invitation. He knew what he did wrong before- he wanted to bust down her defenses right away, he wanted to demand entrance into her heart and all her troubles. That wouldn't work with someone like Rouge.

Her past was a patchwork quilt of pain, rejection, and disappointment. So of course she'd be frightened of expecting more with him. She was used to people raising her up and then letting her fall again. Knuckles understood that now, and he didn't want her to think that he would ever, ever do that.

So he waited. For days and weeks and months, until about a year had passed.

The two of them were sitting by the Master Emerald, which she hadn't tried to steal once in her time there. They were laughing one second, and then the next they were staring at each other, both their eyes reflected in each others.

He leaned closer to her, his lips almost brushing against hers, but he stopped short of a full kiss. He needed to make sure that she wanted this, too. She knew what a kiss to him meant. He didn't just go around doing this kind of thing with someone he wasn't serious with. He was fully prepared for her to decide it wasn't the right time for them. But when she closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his, he couldn't help the overwhelming feeling of joy and relief washing over him.

**Real World - All American Rejects**

They were sitting at his table eating dinner while Rouge was regaling him with stories about her past. She didn't tell him all of them, of course, but she was opening up to him more and more. Knuckles didn't mind. He liked getting it all piece by piece. But this particular story he did not like at all.

"That asshole," he growled when she told him about her first heartbreak. "I kinda want to go hunt him down and make him apologize to you."

Rouge smiled at him gently. "That's sweet, Knuxie, but sadly that's how most of the world works. You take what you can, when you can, before someone gets a chance to screw you over and do it themselves. "

Knuckle's violet eyes met her blue ones. "You're not like that."

Reaching across the table, she laid her hand over his and squeezed. "Well, not any more, at least."

**Show Me How You Burlesque - Christina Aguilera**

She was living up there on Angel Island with Knuckles. It had been decided (without consulting her, she might add) after she had gone to her apartment only to find her living room rigged with explosives. Not very well done, but still, a bomb was a bomb. When Knuckles was told he was livid, and before she knew it, he had brought all her things to his place via the Tornado, and she was staying there.

She hadn't been too happy about it at first, but she had to admit, life on a secluded island was growing on her. No noise. No cities. No police. No bounty hunters. No lights or noises or constantly looking over your shoulder to see if someone was following you. There was just peace. Peace and quiet, for her wounds to heal, physically, mentally and emotionally. And there was a certain sexy guardian, too, of course.

And completely positive that she loved him. For real. Not in a "Oh, he's so cute and fun to bother" kind of way, but in a "I could see myself wanting to stay with you, work out all our problems with you, and wake up to see you in the morning, every morning" kind of way. Which was how she came to the decision to seduce him.

He came home that night to find her relaxing on his bed wearing red lingerie and her trademark sexy smirk. Knuckles was pretty speechless for a few moments before he came to his senses and came over to her nervously, but prepared.

Later that night when his arms were wrapped tight around her, and her legs were tangled up with his, he said "Well, now it's completely settled. You just have to marry me."

She laughed softly against his shoulder. "Impressed, I take it?"

"I don't know… I might have to see something else before I make my judgment completely."

"Well, let's see what I can do about that." When she straddled him wearing nothing but a grin and smeared lipstick, he had to bite his lip to keep from whimpering. "I guess that time working in a cabaret paid off."

He opened his mouth to say "Wait, what?" but it changed to her name being groaned out. He wasn't too worried about not being able to ask her about it right then. Besides, he reminded himself, they'd have a lot more nights like this in the future. Simple questions could wait.

* * *

And, The End. For now, at least. I know some people might question making Rouge so volatile and Knuckles so much… well, nicer to her, but I set this for when they're a little older. I can see Knuckles being a lot calmer and willing to understand once he's grown up a little, and Rouge… Well, Rouge is a spy and a thief, and while she's good at it, I doubt she just stumbled onto the profession. I think she came to it after a series of decisions that left her with a lot of bruises, which is why no one really knows anything about her. Of course no one knows anything about you when you're too afraid to say anything for fear of getting hurt again.

Anyway, that's my reasoning. I do hope I did justice to the pairing and to the characters individually. I always look forward to constructive criticism to help me improve my work. And if you just want to say you liked it, that's absolutely fine, too. Well, until next time.


End file.
